


and i find that happiness is changing almost everything i do

by chshrkitten



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Long-Distance Relationship, Marriage, Post-Canon, Red Hawke (Dragon Age), a "where are they now" kind of fic, also they are boht autistic but im not tagging it because it doesnt directly come up, but it informs my characterization choices so! fun facts!, some bittersweet moments because canon is so angsty but its mostly happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:55:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28595817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chshrkitten/pseuds/chshrkitten
Summary: In which Marian visits her wife.Post-canon epilogue feat. Merrill as a scholar and community leader, Hawke’s complicated feelings towards the city of Kirkwall and the Champion title, and the sacred love language of cooking soup together.
Relationships: Female Hawke/Merrill (Dragon Age), Hawke/Merrill (Dragon Age)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	and i find that happiness is changing almost everything i do

Now a few years into the rebuilding efforts, Kirkwall is just as crowded and sprawling as it ever was, and Hawke flinches at the noise as she makes her way into the city proper. She has the woolen hood Varric gave her for Satinalia last year drawn low over her face, so no one recognizes her, but her bulk and the sword strapped to her back are enough to keep her from being hassled as she makes her way through Lowtown. 

Or maybe the city’s new initiatives have been working after all, and crime in Kirkwall really is down. Stranger things have happened, if only barely. 

When Hawke reaches the alienage, her first sight of Merrill’s house is enough to ease the tension that she didn’t realize she was carrying until now. Normally there’s always someone outside in the alienage’s town square--smoking, talking, doing repairs, watching their kids as they play--but on a day this cold, it’s almost deserted. There’s only one person outside today; the young man from the house next door to Merrill’s, who waves to her as she crosses the square beneath the shadow of the Vhenadahl. She nods to him in response. She isn’t sure when it happened, but at some point in the last few years she has learned all of Merrill’s neighbors by either face or name. 

Reaching the house, Hawke raps on the door, softly calling her wife’s name. When she hears Merrill’s shriek of joy from inside the house, Hawke grins. Her fingers flutter happily inside her gloves. 

Merrill fumbles with the latch for a moment, before she opens the door and ushers Hawke inside. Hawke hastily ducks her head to avoid hitting it on the door frame. Once inside, the two women pull each other immediately into an embrace. Merrill’s hair is soft and cool against Hawke’s cheek where she rests it gently on top of her head. She smells like cooking oil, parchment, and sage. “Marian, Marian…” she murmurs into her wife’s chest, and Marian holds her even tighter for a moment. 

Eventually, Merrill pulls back, her hands still smoothing unconsciously down Marian’s arms. “I’m so glad you’re home, ma vhenan-- well, my home anyway. Not that Kirkwall isn’t also your…. Oh, you know what I mean. I really missed you.” 

Marian lowers her head, and bumps her forehead gently against Merrill’s before pulling away. “Missed you too, sweetheart.” 

***

Night is already starting to fall, so they make dinner together. It’s a simple, filling vegetable soup, flavored with dried herbs that Merrill says were a gift from Dena, the elderly woman who lives with her husband across the way. This comment leads into a detailed update on the progress made over the course of this summer and fall on the newest project that Merrill’s been helping to organize: a community garden set up in one of the least shadowed corners of the alienage. Apparently, Dena and her three daughters have been instrumental in keeping the project going. Marian listens intently as she chops carrots, watching the broth as it begins to simmer. 

When the soup is ready, Marian unwraps the bread she stopped to buy in the market on her way back. She slices it onto the bread board-- _when did we become grown up enough to own a dedicated breadboard?_ She wonders-- while Merrill clears just enough books off the table that they can sit there to eat. Marian glances over at the books and smiles: she likes that Merrill still leaves half a shelf of tomes and treatises laid out on the table at all times. Some things don’t change.

***

“Guard work for a merchants’ caravan, most recently. No real trouble, but they paid well anyway.” And, because she knows Merrill will want a more detailed answer than that, she adds: “It was good, actually. One of the men had a lute, and he played something for us most nights. And there were clear skies all the way to Bremmen.”

“Oh, that does sound nice.” Merrill tears a piece off of her slice of bread, dipping it in the last dregs of her bowl of soup. “They didn’t realize who you were, did they?” 

Marian huffs a laugh. “That far east, I don’t think anyone would have cared who I am.”

“Well, I suppose that means you know how far you need to go now, right? To not be asked if you’re the Champion of Kirkwall.”

Marian hums agreement. “Takes too long to get back, though. I want…” She shrugs, trying to remember that she has no reason to be self-conscious about telling her wife what she wants. “I want to visit more. If that’s still alright.” 

Merrill smiles softly, passing her another slice of bread. 

They talk a little more about Marian’s future plans, for the next time she feels the weight of the city pressing in around her again and needs to get out. Fenris sent word to her by way of Varric (who always seems to know exactly which city Marian will stop at next, no matter how far and how erratically she’s travelled; if it was anyone but Varric that would worry her) about a network of slavers farther northeast that he would appreciate another trustworthy sword arm for dealing with. Marian’s starting to look forward to it; Fenris has been out of the city even longer than she has and she hasn’t seen him since Satinalia. 

Anyway, it’ll be good to use her skills for an unambiguously good cause again, instead of just a neutral one. Fighting by the side of an old friend. It’ll be like old times, like the good parts of old times. For all the blood and fury of her first six years in the Free Marches, there are things about that period of life that she misses. 

She doesn’t know how to explain that part to Merrill just yet, so she doesn’t bring it up. It’s alright; she knows there’ll always be time later to put it into words. Soon, the conversation turns to Merrill’s most recent attempts at deciphering and translating the older volumes of Elven magical theory in her care. As always, Marian understands maybe half of the words Merrill uses when she starts talking about her studies, but what she can understand is interesting, and she loves to sit and listen to the rise and fall of her wife’s voice.

***

“I heard that it’s supposed to storm tomorrow,” Merrill murmurs. By now they’ve migrated over to the largest armchair, leaving the dinner dishes on the table to deal with later, and she’s curled up against Marian’s side.

“Mmhm.” Marian agrees, continuing to run her fingers through Merrill's short, dark hair. “Think it might start tonight. The sky looked like it earlier.” 

“Then I’m very glad you got here in time.” She hesitates. “But the weather should, um, should be clear enough for a long walk the day after. If you wanted to go up to Chantry.” When Marian doesn’t answer right away, she rushes to continue. “I’m sorry, maybe that was… I mean, of course I’m not saying you have to, I didn’t mean to tell you what to do to remember your own family, you just normally want…”

“No, you don’t have to apologize.” Marian cuts her off gently, since Merrill had told her in the past that sometimes it was best to head her off when she started to get that nervous, even if she was still talking. “Just didn’t know how to answer yet. But you’re right, I’ll...I’ll want to. Mother and the twins would… they’d like having candles lit for them.” It’s easier to talk about her family now, after years of refusing to say their names, as long as she doesn’t have to do it for very long. Merrill understands. It was always her who helped Marian through it most, even in the midst of her initial grief, and now that the wound is some time closed, she’s been gently insisting that Marian talk about them as much as she can manage. _You shouldn’t try to forget about them._ She’d said once. _It won’t work, and you wouldn’t want it to. Talking helps, vhenan._ “Thank you,” Marian adds now, “for thinking of that.”

Merrill nods against her shoulder. “Aveline’s been lighting the candles for them lately.” 

Marian goes quiet for a moment, not sure what to say to that. “Good of her.” she decides at last. “Mother always liked her.” So did I, she thinks, thinking of the woman who used to be her best friend. _She did some bad things, but…. oh, who didn’t. Everyone in Kirkwall was scared so fucking stupid back then. It’s been years, and it’s not like I don’t know she’s better now. Maybe I should go talk to her soon, alone. See what can be fixed. See if we can handle more than being civil to each other at Varric’s holiday parties._

Out loud, they allow the conversation to drift to easier topics. Work, the coming winter, a letter Merrill recently received from Isabela. They sit together in the armchair for a long time, letting the fire burn down. 

***

Later that night, they lie curled up together in Merrill’s bed, and Marian blinks out at the darkened room, waiting as her eyes become heavy. The room is as familiar to her as the back of her hand. Even if she doesn’t really think of it as her home, she knows everything about this house. She’s watched it change a lot over the last few years, but not everything is different. There’s still the same green cloak (the one Merrill will never get rid of no matter how many times she has to mend it) thrown over the wardrobe door. Still the same wooden walls. Still the books balanced precariously on every flat surface, and the dried flowers on the table, but now there’s a new line of bunches of dried herbs hanging from the rafters. And pinned up on the kitchen wall is the chart Varric helped Merrill write, the one that reminds her what to bring when she leaves the house, and how to get to the Lowtown market, and what staples she needs to buy there this week so that she doesn’t forget. And in the corner of the bedroom, Marian can see a pale shape in the darkness where a bedsheet is thrown over the empty frame of a mirror; Merrill will get rid of the Eluvian when she feels ready to let it go. 

It might not be her home, Marian thinks, but every part of this house is Merrill. And Merrill is her home, always. 

For a moment, Marian feels a wordless flash of fear, remembering the city that has eaten up so many of the people she holds dear, and knowing that Merrill will never want to live anywhere else. But she takes a deep breath and, holding her soundly-sleeping wife a little closer, remembers the staff propped up in the corner of the room, and how capably Merrill wields it. She remembers the neighbors who watch after Merrill, the community she’s helped to strengthen. She remembers the dwarf and the pirate and even the guard captain who would never let Merrill be harmed. She lets herself relax. 

And she closes her eyes, her heartbeat slowing even as she listens to the wind pick up outside. It sounds like the storm is beginning, but they’re both safe inside, safe and warm and together as Marian finally falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes:
> 
> 1\. The title is from SJ Tucker’s “Weightless,” which is a fantastic LDR song.  
> 2\. I had to google way more things than you would think to write this fic. Picture me hunched over my laptop at 2 am in my pajamas frantically searching “gift giving holidays thedas dragon age” or “what vegetables seasonal in winter” and you’ll have a pretty accurate idea of what that looked like.   
> 3\. There’s something very romantic in my eyes about married couples who have separate lives and not entirely compatible life plans but still manage to put a lifestyle together that suits both their needs while prioritizing the time they want to spend together.   
> 4\. Here’s a minor detail: I'm not sure whether this came across or not, but background-present in this fic is my headcanon that Merrill struggles with some self-care activities due to executive functioning issues. Like we don’t see it much visually because the scenery in DA2 is so simplified but I think we can extrapolate a) from her location-specific dialogue about being embarrassed by the mess, b) from the items we do see scattered around haphazardly, and c) from the general dinginess of the place, that she doesn’t keep her home as clean as she would like to. And of course there’s her banter about getting lost when running errands even after she’s lived in the city for a long time, and similar comments (and my other super important evidence, which is that I personally enjoy this headcanon, which ofc makes it true). Anyway I like to imagine that during the intervening couple years between canon and this fic’s timeframe, Merrill was able to get more support and learn strategies for self-care tasks that work for her. So that’s the reasoning behind the chart I mentioned in the fic, (which seems like a very Varric idea, somehow).
> 
> Anyway this author’s note is getting longer than the fic, so in conclusion: *taps microphone* Hawke and Merrill are very gay and very happy together. Thank you for your time.


End file.
